JUST 55 per cent of Tasmanian schoolgirls have taken up the offer of free vaccination against cervical cancer.
Health authorities say they are surprised and disappointed at the low take-up rate.
Although more than 100,000 Tasmanian women and girls have been vaccinated, acting public health director Chrissie Pickin said take-up of the Gardasil and Cervarix vaccines had been slower than she had hoped.
“You would think that with a new vaccine, a safe vaccine, able to protect your children against cancer, people would be knocking the doors down,” she said.
“Fifty-five per cent is not as good as we’d like but that’s the figure for schoolchildren who have completed all three doses so we do suspect that more will have had the first and the second doses, but clearly we would like them to complete all three doses.”
North Hollywood, California, May 17, 2010 — North Hollywood, CA. Rosemary Mathis, co-founder of TruthAboutGardasil.org was interviewed for an expose, Mom Blames Teen’s Illness on HPV Vaccine on NBC affiliate WXII12 – http://www.wxii12.com/news/23519907/detail.html in Winston-Salem, North Carolina on Tuesday, May 11. The interview garnered national and international attention and has been posted on Fox, MSNBC, Yahoo, You Tube and legal sites for attorneys representing other injured girls.
The article and video have been viewed by thousands and Mathis has received hundreds of emails from other concerned parents. In addition, the TruthAboutGardasil web site has had thousands of hits since the interview aired.
Mathis’ exposure to Gardasil began at a routine visit to her daughter’s pediatrician who encouraged her daughter Lauren, then 12, to get the vaccination. According to Rosemary, “I always trusted my doctors. I always fully trusted all vaccines. I am not anti-vaccine at all, so I let him give it to her and should not have done that. But I did.”
Soon after that, Lauren became bedridden and over the next year and a half missed over 100 days of school. She was diagnosed with an enlarged liver, nonfunctioning gallbladder, and internal sores in her abdomen. The Gardasil product insert and TV commercials claim that side effects include pain, swelling, itching, redness around the injection site, fever and dizziness. Mathis states that none of the side effects her daughter experienced are on that list.
After seeking medical help over the next year, a doctor at Duke Medical University finally confirmed that Lauren’s illness was directly related to a vaccine. The HPV vaccine is the only vaccination Lauren had received.
Today Rosemary is a staunch advocate for educating parents, legislators and anyone else who will listen about the dangers of Gardasil. She along with Marian Greene of North Carolina, whose daughter Holly was also adversely injured from Gardasil founded TruthAboutGardasil.org.
Mathis and Greene became part of a larger international group of women already working on researching, gathering data and educating parents worldwide about the potential dangers of the HPV vaccines. In March of this year, six of the women including Mathis, Karen Maynor from New Mexico, whose daughter, Megan Hild, died after receiving Gardasil, Freda Birrell from Scotland, Janny Stokvis from the Netherlands, Cynthia Janak from Illinois and Leslie Carol Botha from Colorado had the opportunity to present their research to the FDA.
Although the FDA has not acted on the group’s recommendations to halt the HPV vaccination campaigns until independent studies on their safety and efficacy has been determined, the six women work tirelessly in their efforts to demand that Gardasil and Cervarix be pulled from the markets. Their network includes parents and advocates in New Zealand, India, Greece, Ireland, Sweden, France, Australia, Germany and Spain.
Mathis speaks for the entire group when she stated: “I am afraid that Gardasil is going to be another Vioxx, and five years from now they are going to pull it and it is going to be too late for all these girls.”
Bill Gates, co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, on Friday denied knowledge of the controversy over alleged violations of ethics during clinical trials of HPV (human papilloma virus) vaccine conducted by a U.S.-based non-governmental organisation for a pharmaceutical company.
Bill and Melinda Gates had funded PATH, that conducted the ‘trial for a pharmaceutical company in the backwards districts of Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) that had approved the clinical trials asked the State governments to stop any further trials after the matter was brought to their notice.
Attempting to steer clear of the issue, Mr. Gates told a group of journalists here that HPV had been approved for private marketing in the U.S. and many other countries were using it. However, while insisting that he did not have any knowledge of the issue, Mr. Gates asked the journalists they were aware of the condition of cervical cancer patients. “You should visit a hospital where women with cervical cancer are treated. It is a bad disease,” he said.
Even when financial and healthcare barriers are removed, some parents remain hesitant to have their daughters receive the HPV vaccine. As a result, policymakers must develop and implement strategies to ensure optimal HPV vaccine uptake, says new research in this week’s PLoS Medicine. Gina Ogilvie and colleagues surveyed parents of grade 6 girls (age 11) in a publicly funded school-based program in British Columbia, Canada, to determine the level of uptake of the first dose of the HPV vaccine, and to examine the factors involved in their decision to allow receipt of the vaccine.
Sixty five percent of the 2,025 parents who completed the survey had consented to their daughter receiving the first dose of HPV vaccine. By contrast, more than 85% of the parents reported to have consented to hepatitis B and meningitis C vaccinations for their daughters. Of those who did not consent, almost a third of the parents said concern about the vaccine’s safety was their main reason and one in eight said they had not been given sufficient information to make an informed decision. The authors report that a positive parental attitude towards vaccination and a parental belief that HPV vaccination had limited impact on sexual practices increased the likelihood of a daughter receiving the HPV vaccine. Having a family with two parents or three or more children and having well-educated parents decreased the likelihood of a daughter receiving the vaccine.
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Funding: Funded by the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
Competing Interests: SM is a member of the Canadian National Advisory Committee on Immunization. SD is presently a member of the British Columbia Immunization Sub-committee which advises the provincial government on practical issues related to the implementation of publicly funded immunization programs. From 2000 to 2008 SD was a member of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization for Canada. In 2008 SD attended an Advisory Board for Merck for a vaccine not yet licensed. This was not the vaccine used in the Provincial HPV vaccine program discussed in this paper. SD was paid an honorarium for my work on this advisory board.
Citation: Ogilvie G, Anderson M, Marra F, McNeil S, Pielak K, et al. (2010) A Population-Based Evaluation of a Publicly Funded, School-Based HPV Vaccine Program in British Columbia, Canada: Parental Factors Associated with HPV Vaccine Receipt. PLoS Med 7(5): e1000270. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000270
Gina Ogilvie
BC Centre for Disease Control
STD/AIDS Control
655 West 12th Avenue
Vancouver, British Columbia V5Z 4R4
Canada
604-707-5608 gina.ogilvie@bccdc.ca
Over the recent months there have been several articles highlighting cases where children have had seizures after vaccines. This is being portrayed as something new. A sudden rise in children having seizures after the flu vaccine in Western Australia caused the vaccine to be suspended while an investigation took place. The HPV vaccine Gardasil, is another vaccine causing great concern, after many parents reported seizures after their children were vaccinated.
This week the focus has moved to the DPT vaccine.
Articles have been appearing in the headlines reporting that babies have experienced seizures after the DPT vaccine. A few examples are listed below.
This is nothing new. Parents and doctors have been raising concerns regarding the DPT vaccine since the 1970′s. This original letter is from a concerned Prof of Neurology raising the issue in 1979 is a strong example.
I have had an increasing number of patients bringing their epileptic children and asking whether the whooping cough vaccine played a part in their disorder. Could you give me as many details as possible about the present legal situation regards this group and the type of information they require in order to prove relationship between the vaccination and the disorder.
I would be most grateful if you could give this information.
D Neary M.D M.R.C.P
Consultant Lecturer of Neurology
This letter proves without a doubt that the DPT was a concern as far back as the 1970′s.
More evidence comes in the form of a single page from a report entitled VIEWS FROM THE ADVISORY PANEL advising the UK Government and stated:-
“However, from a careful scrutiny of the data, it was felt that 3 clinical patterns could be discerned.
Chronic Epilepsy
Acute Encephalopathy
Infantile Spasms
Mental retardation followed in all but 3 of the 50 cases.
b) in children with chronic epilepsy and to the lesser extent , with acute encephalopathy, the timing of the reactions in relation to the immunisation was such that association seemed possible but the strength of the evidence varied from case to case and was more convincing in some than others. In the children with chronic epilepsy, for example, convulsions occurring shortly after each of two or three injections were particularly suggestive of a casual relationship.”
Again this report was from the 70′s.
A report entitled The Tainted History of the DPT by Harold Stearley portrays the full history of the DPT vaccine. Searley speaks open and honestly and asks a very important question :-
“There’s no question that DPT vaccinations save lives; they have lowered the annual pertussis deaths from about 1000 annually to less than ten. Unfortunately, as reported by the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), the form of the vaccine used and sanctioned by the Centers for Disease Control also kills as many as 900 children per year, and leaves one of every 62,000 children immunized with permanent brain damage. Are those acceptable risks?”
The answer to that question is categorically NO! I feel that the question should not be ‘Are those acceptable risks’ because the are not, the real question should be, ‘how many parents are actually made aware of these risks before vaccination’?
In his report Searley mentions Prof Gordon T Stewart. Having interviewed Prof Stewart 4 years ago I know this professional has had his concerns ignored for many years. Prof Stewart is a gentleman who I met, aged 91 who was still campaigning and helping parents in fight their battle for justice after vaccine injury.
Searley says ;-
“In 1977, British researcher Dr. Gordon T. Stewart, of the Department of Community Medicine at the University of Glasgow, documented adverse reactions to DPT vaccine and evaluated the benefit to risk ratio for children in the United Kingdom. His research demonstrated that 1 of every 54,000 children receiving the vaccine suffered encephalopathy (brain disfunction) with rare instances of mental retardation ensuing. Other symptoms included fits of screaming, unresponsiveness, shock, vomiting, localized paralysis, and convulsions.
Of the 160 adverse cases he examined, 40 percent demonstrated hyperkinesis (increased muscle movements accompanying brain dysfunction), infantile spasms, flaccid paralysis, and partial or complete amentia (severe mental retardation).
He determined that adverse events were severely under-reported or overlooked, that no protection from the disease was demonstrable in infants, and that claims by official bodies that risks of whooping-cough exceeded those of vaccination were very questionable. He estimated the risk of transient brain damage and mental defect to occur in 1 out of every 10,000 vaccinated, and risk for permanent brain damage to occur in 1 out of every 20,000 to 60,000 vaccinated. “
In fact Prof Stewart made countless attempts to make his feelings known over many years. Here is just one example of an enormous amount of letters he wrote over many years to the UK Government. This particular letter is to Mr P Allen, Secretary, Committee on Safety Medicine written in the 1980′s.
Professor Gordon
Stewart letter Page One. Click Here
Professor Gordon Stewart
letter Page Two Click Here
Professor Gordon
Stewart letter Page Three Click Here
“It is generally accepted that immunisation against whooping cough may cause brain damage, the sequence being the immunising procedure provokes a reaction, the reaction or the related fever causes a fit, the reaction of the fit if prolonged, damages the brain cells and that damage is sometime irreversible”
My argument is, these are the professionals we trust and yet here they are speaking in my opinion about vaccination causing brain damage which is ‘IRREVERSIBLE’ as if it is an everyday occurrence which should be perfectly acceptable. Prof Sir David Hull as he is now known, should try sitting opposite a parent facing this for real.
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